


Barriers to Break

by waterbird13



Series: Tumblr Fics [115]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Coming Out, Gen, Transitioning, mtf Tony, trans tony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-12
Updated: 2016-08-12
Packaged: 2018-08-08 06:22:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7746520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterbird13/pseuds/waterbird13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony's broken a lot of barriers in her life.</p><p>There's one more to go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Barriers to Break

**Author's Note:**

> This is another piece from Tumblr.
> 
> Warnings: Trans Tony coming out, transitioning.

Tony’s been breaking boundaries forever. When she started, computers were big ugly things. Robots like she dreamed of were farsical fantasies. Genius kids didn’t change the world.

She broke through her family, her name, her industry. She became a damn superhero and changed the industry again, and then the world, because why would anyone aim small when there’s so much that they could do.

There’s just one more barrier to break.

It’s a big-ass barrier, Tony knows. Trans CEOs aren’t exactly common, but trans superheroes are a nonexistent entity. So far.

The media is going to be after her blood. But they have been since she was a child. 

First thing’s first. The goatee, the assertion, the promise of masculinity she’s worn ever since she was able to, the thing that would make the board see her as both an adult and a man, the thing Obie considered a good idea, it has to go. So she shaves.

 _That_  garners enough reaction from the world, so Tony quietly starts telling the people around her. Rhodey knows, Rhodey’s known for years, and he looks proud when she says she’s doing it, telling everyone to go fuck themselves, because it’s her turn to take care of herself.

Pepper gets it, smiles, manages the details. As always, supportive, efficient Pepper, and Tony still doesn’t know how she would survive without her.

The team takes it well too, with some explanations. They’re not the closest, yet, and she probably shocks them, but she’s not in the business of softening this for other people. She’s waited too long. Benn made to wait too long. But she’s free, and she’s a goddamn superhero. If she can fly a nuke into space, she can tell the world fuck you, fuck you all, I’m a girl and I’m a genius and a superhero and a majority shareholder and the head of R&D for one of the most significant companies in modern times, and still, a girl, and you’ll treat me like it.

Bruce insists, as always, he’s not that type of doctor, but he does help her find someone who is that type of doctor, and they talk hormones, and before long, they’re not talking. She’s using.

Results take time. She’s a scientist, she can objectively appreciate tracking results. 

She hates waiting.

Pepper takes her shopping and gets her everything she’ll need for the next time she has to play dress up for the board or a gala or whatever. She still likes her jeans, her tanks, her ratty band tees, the clothes meant for work and for leisure, but she needs a new wardrobe.

She still hasn’t told the public, but her face is softening, her torso reshaping with some diet and work. Her voice changes and she’s so, so happy. She lets her hair curl into what she always formally considered just a little too long without a haircut.

She wants breasts. They’re hard, because she has the arc reactor and the skin around it looks little better than hamburger. They go small, and it’s not perfect, but it works.

Iron Man–and she’s going to change that, dammit, although it’ll be hard, the public likes naming shit that doesn’t belong to them–needs some reshaping, which requires hours and hours of work, and Pepper hauls her out of the lab and pushes her into the bathroom, shouting that Tony has two hours to be ready.

In the limo, Tony adjusts the dress and takes a deep breath. Antoinette Stark. Her Mom had wanted to call her that if she’d been a girl, anyways. Antoinette, Tony, Stark. Ready to take on the world.


End file.
